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Now that we’ve established that working from home is highly successful when properly deployed and implemented, the question becomes how does an organization go about it? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of U.S. jobholders who worked from home at least one day a week increased to 9.5 percent in 2010 (up from 7 percent in 1997), so clearly this practice is on the rise. As the practice of WFH has risen, so too has the investigation into whether it makes sense.

By now, most of you have heard the recent furor over Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer’s, mandate which will cut telecommute practices and require employees to work strictly out of Yahoo headquarters come June 1st. Some would say this is pretty extreme in light of the rise in telecommuting trends. Mayer may have a point. Although Yahoo allowed work from home policies in the past, reports from former employees indicate that many would abuse this perk and might be a contributing factor to the malaise of the company as a whole.

It’s that time again and we’re excited to bring on the second session of our five-part Multipoint Video Conferencing series! During the last session, we discussed how the MCU has evolved over the different deployment options: the MCU as part of an endpoint, standalone hardware, the hybrid solution and finally cloud.

Today we’re excited to announce the ability to do bi-directional HD desktop sharing from Microsoft Lync to room systems like Cisco and Polycom to Skype, Google Video Chat, iOS devices and any web browser.

It’s important to note the difference between multipoint and multiplatform. Multipoint is defined as a call with 3 or more participants from varying locations. Simply put, it’s the number of participants in a call. Multiplatform goes one level deeper and it speaks to the different types of video-enabled devices that are supported in a multipoint call.

If you’re new to the video conferencing world and are looking for a solution for your growing organization, the task can be pretty daunting. One of the acronyms you’ll hear a lot is MCU – multipoint control unit. This is a system, often times a piece of hardware that bridges multiple video endpoints into a single call.